Don't run out and replace that HD-DVD with Blu-Ray player before reading up on XStreamHD!

[NoMoShocks]

I went down to Magnolia HiFi at lunch and checked out the Vudu, but if XBox 360 will do the same thing, I better go check that out, since we have two Xbox 360 in the house already, and one is on XBox live service.

[steviet]

Originally Posted by Presto

Video can be re-encoded to a smaller file size with minimal quality loss. Something as simple as a slightly lower bit-rate can pull the size down considerably. Also, the extras can be removed, as well as unnecessary audio tracks. There is already huge network of HD torrent sites where movies are re-encoded to DVD5 or DVD9 size. On a modest connection, a DVD5 sized HD title can be downloaded in less than 4 hours.

You can't compress 35GB of movie down to 4.7GB or 7.4GB with minimal quality loss, just can't happen. Even if you cut that down to 25GB without all the extras, it's still heavily compressed. I'm not saying it's bad quality, it's just not the same as the physical media.

Try downloading those torrent files on a comcast network, it will take you days to download them. They monitor what you are downloading and limit your uploading speed, which in turn limits your downloading speed to somewhere in the 20kbps rate, if your lucky.

Steve

[steviet]

Originally Posted by Danny

I'm very happy with my Xbox 360 setup. Due to the price, I've only rented one HD movie on it, but I thought the quality was very very good. It started streaming within about 30 seconds. If the rumored Netflix/Xbox 360 partnership ends up happening, I'll switch from Blockbuster to Netflix and will just download all of my content.

Here's a nice comparison of AppleTV vs Xbox Live. AppleTV definitely has more content right now, but hopefully MS will address that soon and bring down the prices:

Tabulator: Xbox Live Video Marketplace vs. Apple TV - Joystiq

I had to sell my xbox 360, it was way too loud and got smoking hot. Comparing the amount of movies and the studios Apple appears to be in the lead by over 700 titles. It will take a little more time and customer exposure but I think Apple will end up with a heavier user base. Especially considering people can use itunes to rent the movies, making it platform independent.

[Presto]

Originally Posted by steviet

You can't compress 35GB of movie down to 4.7GB or 7.4GB with minimal quality loss, just can't happen. Even if you cut that down to 25GB without all the extras, it's still heavily compressed. I'm not saying it's bad quality, it's just not the same as the physical media.

Sure you can. It's kind of the same idea as JPEGs and the quality setting you choose to save it. For example, my Canon G5 spits of 4.5MB JPG files. If I re-save them with a quality setting of 8, the file-size is reduced to 500KB. Unless you scrutinize it pixel-by-pixel, the difference in quality is minimal. It also depends on other factors like the encoding method, resolution, and bitrate, etc....

[NoMoShocks]

I have really noticed the heat output from my son's Xbox 360. In his 12 by 11 foot bedroom, I think it rasise the temperature of the whole room by at least 5 degrees over several hours. Enough to make the room uncomfortable for me

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by Presto

Sure you can. It's kind of the same idea as JPEGs and the quality setting you choose to save it. For example, my Canon G5 spits of 4.5MB JPG files. If I re-save them with a quality setting of 8, the file-size is reduced to 500KB. Unless you scrutinize it pixel-by-pixel, the difference in quality is minimal. It also depends on other factors like the encoding method, resolution, and bitrate, etc....

The key here is that steviet said "with minimal quality loss". That may be a subjective term, but by my standards the quality loss is not minimal. HD movies are already compressed, which is how they can fit them on the disks they use. If 4 to 7 GB was good enough, they could have stayed with DVDs and not bothered with a new format. Everyone has their own set of standards, but you can't pretend that a nine to one compression on previously compressed data has no practical quality impact.

Tom

[mikepaul]

Originally Posted by qbee42

Everyone has their own set of standards, but you can't pretend that a nine to one compression on previously compressed data has no practical quality impact.

Last I knew, you were lucky to get 5% recompressing something like a ZIP file, so if you get 90% then there was no real compression in use.

Codec differences cause MPEG-2 files to really shrink into MPEG-4, but MPEG-4 to WMV9 sometimes grows.

More likely, people are converting from 1920x1080 to 720x480 and accepting the detail loss. Since one point being made about why any HD disk format isn't selling well is that 720x480 is good enough, that's why the smaller files are accepted well...

[Alric]

I own an Xbox and an AppleTV. What makes the Xbox cumbersome to use the long load times. With the AppleTV I can start watching an HD movie in 5 min. In the xbox I have to consistently wait an hour or more.

They are complementary though. 3:10 to yuma is not offered in HD by the iTunes store but it is by Xbox live.

Regarding the compression level. It all comes down to you screen size and viewing distance. The best way to tell if it makes a difference to you is to try them. I find that with my 50" set Xbox live and AppleTV look the same. I have to struggle consciously to find difference between either and HD-DVD.